Case Ref: 23 021 000 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council agreed to remind officers of the Council’s responsibility, under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996, to ensure children out of school receive full-time education provision, or the provision that is assessed to be in the child’s best interests. The Council should continue to review its decision about whether it owes a section 19 duties to make sure it steps in as soon as the duties are engaged.

Case Ref: 23 017 942 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Create an action plan to demonstrate how the Council will implement the steps it has taken to improve its Special Educational Needs and Disability service.
• Provide evidence of how the Council is monitoring the impact of the changes made to its Special Educational Needs and Disability service.

Case Ref: 23 017 456 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Child protection

• The Council has agreed to provide us with an action plan which sets out how, in future, it will avoid similar failings in safeguarding timeliness and social work visiting frequency.

Case Ref: 23 011 999 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will remind staff of the importance of communicating decisions around educational personal budgets in writing to applicants.
• The Council will remind staff of the importance of considering complaints and providing clear, reasoned responses.

Case Ref: 23 011 962 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Review its alternative education policy alongside our published guidance ‘Out of school, out of sight?’ July 2022. It should consider the recommendations we made, and how it can incorporate these recommendations into its policy.

Case Ref: 23 008 346 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Provide the Ombudsman with evidence of the steps taken as part of the Council’s remodelling of its special educational needs and disability service, and its employment of additional Educational Psychologists.

Case Ref: 23 008 335 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Share this decision with relevant staff and remind them that the Council retains a legal responsibility for children that are out of school because of exclusion, illness or for other reasons, and should have an oversight of the education provided or offered.

Case Ref: 23 007 343 Category: Education Sub Category: School admissions

• The Council will issue written reminders to clerks to ensure they record the reasons for the panel’s decision at both stages of the school admissions appeals process and they provide detailed explanations to parents/guardians in the decision letters.

Case Ref: 23 007 209 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council agreed to share a copy of our decision with relevant staff across its Special Educational Needs and Disability service. It will remind staff that:the Council has a statutory duty to secure the Special Educational Needs provision in a child’s Education, Health, and Care (EHC) Plan, which it cannot delegate; andwhere a family raises concerns that an EHC Plan is not being delivered, it should properly investigate and assure itself the provision is in place without delay.

Case Ref: 23 004 892 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will remind staff in its Special Educational Needs and Disability department that it is the Council’s responsibility, not the schools to make arrangements for the provision of suitable education for children not attending school for illness or other reasons if suitable arrangements have not been made.